Not that bold
by briallnanson
Summary: For Daryl it was the quiet of her voice, the shakiness with which she said the last two words and they caught in her throat. It was what undid him; launching to close those last few inches of space and burry a hand in her hair, dragging her lips up to meet his. [Season 2 AU]


A/N: Slightly pointless smut-ish thing. This was originally meant to be waaay longer (no really, it was a monster.) and have a way more complicated, drawn out plot line but I ran out of time and decided to cut it short with maybe coming back and finishing it up later to have the plot I initially wanted. So do excuse it if it ends rather abruptly, there is a direct continuation to it that I will probably publish later because I already have nearly 5K words written of it and it would be a waste to not publish.

For background information: This is a companion to my AU gifset on tumblr, where Beth is stranded on the road in the very beginning of the outbreak and she finds Daryl and Merle and they agree to take her to the farm. If you want to see the gifset go to my blog and check under my tag "bethyl au" and you should find it. Please leave a review and tell me if you think this is worth continuing!

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><p>Beth Greene didn't imagine that she could ever feel more out of place, more out of her element than traveling the state with the Dixons. She hadn't thought of it all that time ago when she first met them. She didn't even think that they could hurt her, even with Merle's leer and sinister smile directed at her when he told her to "hop on" to the old Ford pickup. Her thoughts had been scattered somewhere between the hopes of going home again and the nightmares of seeing the fate that had come over her classmates on that bus she was in; powerless to do anything but run as fast as she could and force herself to not look back. She didn't know how long she ran. She didn't know how many of those <em>things <em>she dodged until she had to reluctantly take the knife she had taken off one of the corpses and raise it to the eye socket of one that was snarling and baring his teeth at her. She'd puked immediately afterwards; leaving her with nothing but a dull pain in her abdomen because she had been on an empty stomach for nearly two days already.

So when the rumble of a vehicle, the first sign of life she'd seen in days, ripped through the silence she always made sure she kept (the dead had very good hearing, she'd found out) she had thrown caution to the wind and decided that no fate was worse than being ripped apart by the dead. She'd ran to the middle of the road, waving her arms frantically and nearly getting herself run over.

In retrospect, she realized there were _plenty _of worse fates than being dead or undead and she thanked her lucky stars that aside from a few off comments from Merle Dixon, she felt relatively safe with the crude and aggressive men that had for reasons beyond her, joined her cause to find the farm. In fact, she felt more than lucky to know that Daryl Dixon wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pool, judging by his attitude towards her.

Attitude which only became worse when the _walkers_, as the Dixons called them, overran the small hardware store they were raiding in Atlanta, forcing Daryl to shove Beth through a door and follow closely behind her; crossbow at the ready, while Merle ran in the opposite direction shouting promises of meeting them back at the truck.

They'd waited all night. Daryl perched on the bed of the truck and Beth in the cab, dozing off to sleep at one point and waking up to the morning sunlight and the realization that Merle Dixon wasn't coming back.

Beth had matched Daryl's brooding silence for the next two days with her own; determined to reach her farm with or without the angry man next to her that seemed to favor communication in nothing but grunts, growls and mumbles.

"You're free to go if you're so eager to get rid of me!" She'd bit out to him the day after Merle disappeared, sitting in the drivers seat of the truck, almost _daring _him to walk away. But he'd only mumbled something unintelligible and begrudgingly hauled himself into the passenger's seat with a pout the rest of the way to Senoia.

She didn't imagine that sitting in her home days later, with her sister chewing on her thumbnail in worry over their grieving father and a group of strangers camping on her front lawn, she would feel more of a stranger than the days she spent in a beat up blue pickup.

She certainly didn't imagine herself running out in the middle of the night; slipper clad feet light as she made her way down her darkened porch, her focus solely on the lonely tent set up farthest away from her childhood home.

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><p>She saw him through the mesh of the tent before he could hear her approaching. He was laying back on the mess of sleeping bags and blankets with a hand behind his head staring blankly up at the blue nylon fabric above him. His ripped, dirty flannel was unbuttoned; something Beth had taken very little mind of in her determination to find him but when he noticed the zipper of the tent being undone and her blonde head of hair peek through, he scrambled upright, tugging his shirt over his chest in an almost comedic attempt at modesty.<p>

"The _hell _are you doing here?" he growled out; looking at her like she'd sprouted another head when she pulled the zipper up behind her.

She took her time before answering, sitting in front of him and raising a brow at the way he immediately scooted backwards; putting more distance between them.

"Daddy's not at the house."

He blinked.

"Well he sure as hell ain't here; so get to gettin'."

Weeks ago she would have never pressed on; his animosity frightened her into silence with as much as a glare. But today she knew better. She knew why she was there.

"He used to drink," she said, to Daryl's disbelief that she was still talking. "I never saw it. Maggie told me. We think he went down to the bar in town. Mr. Grimes and that guy, Glenn, went to check it out."

"They're together you know," Daryl glanced up, "Maggie and Glenn. She didn't tell me; but...I know."

His glare softened just a little, perhaps at the emotion swimming in her big blue eyes that even he wasn't fool enough to not notice.

"This farm got lucky," she continued. At this Daryl slowly gave a nod, knowing he agreed with her. "The walkers might not be coming up soon, but it'll happen. And when it does...I'll be alone."

"Ain't true. You got-"

"What? Jimmy? My dad? I dated Jimmy for three months and suddenly everyone acts like I'm married to him. My dad doesn't know what he's doing! He was keepin' those things in the barn!"

Daryl snorted and threw a glare in her direction. "Well you sure as hell ain't my problem no more so I don't know what you're tryin' to get at!"

"I can't be there anymore," she said with large, pleading eyes that Daryl had no choice but to stare back at. Then, he exploded. Pushing himself forward until he was inches from her face, rage and irritation at what she was suggesting.

"You're a real piece of work Girl, you know that? First you drag my brother and me around half of Georgia trying to find your goddamn farm! I lost Merle and I still brought you here! Now you talkin' about leaving this place?!"

"I never said I wanted to leave!" She yelled right back; not cowering away. Instead, leaving only inches of space between them. She took a moment of breath. Just one; and when she spoke again her voice was quiet; as if sharing a secret. "I just can't be in that house. I can't. I wanna be here. With you."

For Daryl it was the quiet of her voice, the shakiness with which she said the last two words and they caught in her throat. It was what undid him; launching to close those last few inches of space and burry a hand in her hair, dragging her lips up to meet his.

Beth didn't know if it was pent up frustration between them that had Daryl licking against her mouth, moving past her lips and down to her neck, back towards her ear, further to the back of her neck where he sank his teeth down prompting a hiss from her. Pain or pleasure? She couldn't tell and she didn't rightly care when her own hands tugged at fistfulls of his hair when his lips traveled down towards her breasts, a rough hand inelegantly tugging her tank top down and over, leaving her chest bare to his gaze.

She didn't know if it was the heat of their argument minutes before that found her sitting on the blankets on the floor, legs brought up to either side of his hips and his hands tugging down at her pajama bottoms. Or if it was simply an inevitable result of something they'd been dancing around for months. Through a haze of moans and pleads for more when his fingers sunk into her, she figured it was the latter. That the fire that had sparked between them when they first met could only be fanned, not put out. That it was best to employ the passionate gazes and sharp tongues to a better use.

She came undone around his fingers fairly quickly. It had been months since she'd been touched; (she'd not allowed Jimmy anything more intimate than a hand hold since her return) and longer, if ever, since she'd felt such an unabashed _need _before. He commanded her gaze as he took his fingers from her, held it while he brought them to his lips and she found very little resolve to hold back a moan while a smirk tugged at his lips.

She caught her breath for all but a few seconds until his hands were on her again. This time one at her hip and one at her shoulder and before she could make sense of his intentions she was unceremoniously flipped to her stomach, one large hand pinning her down by the shoulder. She could hear the distinct sounds of a buckle and a zipper coming undone and just seconds later, the weight of his body as he carefully placed himself over her, nipping at the back of her neck. With one thrust he was inside her, a groan ripping through her throat at finally _finally _feeling him.

She didn't know how long it had been for him, but she guessed just as long as her by the quick, uneven rhythm he set. Paying little mind to her and far more to his own needs. She didn't mind. She relished in the noises spilling from his lips, the puffs of breath tickling the back of her neck and the nearly painful feeling of her filling her up and stretching her in ways she'd never experienced before. Perhaps there'd be a more prominent pain tomorrow, when his pleasure wasn't there to egg hers on but in the present, she couldn't bring herself to care.

She mused that the world, violent and ruthless as it was, had made her a little twisted as well. Reached out its savage hands to grip her until she took pleasure in things she surely blushed at before; but the thought was only fleeting and was quickly cast out by the feeling of him _everywhere. _His weight on her, his slick skin sliding against hers, mouth and hot breath sloppily at her ear, and the thrusts that she wasn't even sure she was meeting consciously, or if she'd reached a point where her body was just responding with no will or thought; only instinct.

Beth didn't remember how long she laid there afterwards, with his body on hers as they both fought to catch their breaths. For one mad moment she thought about turning around and facing him; running her hands through his short, dirty blonde hair and placing a kiss on his lips. Instead she began to shuffle away from him, feeling a shiver run through her as his body heat left her and she awkwardly shimmied back into her pajama bottoms and pulled her cotton tank top up. They'd not even had the delicacy of taking it off; bunching it around her waist seemed to be enough for Daryl. And for her too. She didn't make eye contact; didn't really look in his direction for too long before she exited the tent, body vibrating with a soreness that she recognized as the _good _sort and wondering if Daryl was laying in his tent feeling the same loss of tension she was.

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><p>It was a secret. And she preferred it that way. She was never very good at confrontations and she dreaded telling Jimmy the real reason she was distant. Putting space between them had already been hard enough. She didn't want to think of what her father would say; what he would <em>think <em>of the time she spent on the road alone with Daryl. He would surely make the wrong assumption that, whatever it was they had, had been happening from the very beginning. And Maggie would run him off the farm with a shot gun.

So they kept quiet; seeing each other only in the dead of night when Beth could easily sneak out of her bedroom and sneak back in before even Patricia woke to feed the animals. There were times when they were less careful. More frantic. When Daryl had asked Hershel to borrow a horse and Beth had sweetly volunteered to show him to the stables and he had taken her atop a stack of hay bales; hardly any clothes needing to come off at all.

They never spoke much. Daryl would simply give her a look that Beth could only interpret as a glare when she would try to make conversation and she quickly learned to keep the chitchat to a minimum. It was better when they didn't speak. No one had to know the entrapment Beth felt sitting idly by at the farm; waiting for the impeding attack of walkers and how Daryl was her only release from the frustration of it all. No one had to know that Daryl _wanted _something. Wanted actual human contact; even if it was at this base, primal level. It was their secret. And it was better that way.


End file.
